Fragrances Boutique

Introducing CHANCE EAU TENDRE Eau de Toilette by CHANEL.

A new facet of CHANCE is born — the third generation of the CHANCE Fragrance family. CHANEL Master Perfumer Jacques Polge has created a new fragrance constellation that is a whirlwind of tender and vibrant notes. This incarnation of the decidedly youthful scent reveals itself to be both delicate and airy, with an intoxicatingly light, fruity trail. An unexpected mingling of grapefruit and quince meets the crispness of fresh green notes, while a trace of Jasmine Absolute lingers in the air. Gently warmed by a sheer veil of White Musk, CHANCE EAU TENDRE Eau de Toilette is at once innocent and seductive, for those who dare to dream anew.

CHANEL CHANCE EAU TENDRE Eau de Toilette: $65.00 for 1.7 oz., $90.00 for 3.4oz.

On counter: March 2010 at Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s Soho & 59th Street in New York City, CHANEL boutiques and Chanel.com

April 2010 at all CHANEL counters in department and specialty stores

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Yesterday was a pretty interesting and confusing day. First, there was the Celine show, where Phoebe Philo’s slim, terse coats with high necks and off-center buttons caught my attention.

In early April, Chanel will launch Chance Eau Tendre, a new flanker to 2002’s Chance fragrance for women (and see also: Chance Eau Fraîche).

Pure olfactory poetry, a reminder of how rare…

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Tara Pearls Jewelry on Gilt Groupe | Source: Gilt Groupe

What’s a Dress Worth? (NY Magazine)
“The online retailer Gilt Groupe offers a great deal: Buy designer clothes at deep discounts. But is it good or bad for fashion?”

Chanel to sell goods online (Marketing)
“Chanel is to begin selling products directly through its website later this year in a landmark decision likely to be followed by rival luxury brands.”

Carolina Herrera Sees Signs of Life in Luxury (WSJ)
“Fashion designer Carolina Herrera says she was “shocked” a few months ago when she noticed her $7,990 gray sequined tulle gowns were “selling like hotcakes,” relatively speaking.”

World’s top fashion prize increased to 220,000 euros (AFP)
“The coveted Andam fashion prize for emerging talent on Monday announced a more than 25-percent increase in its endowment, to 220,000 euros (307,000 dollars).”

London Fashion Week Preview (Fashion156)
Fashion156 launches the London Fashion Week preview issue, including coverage on womenswear, menswear, accessories, beauty and grooming.

Here’s a look at another idea from the spring couture: garments with exceptional three-dimensional texture.

Glistening fabrics gave the spring couture collections in Paris an extra quality of mystery.

Seibu Yurakucho | Source: theworldmodspb

Seven & I to Shut Seibu Department Store on Sales (Bloomberg)
“Seven & I Holdings Co., Japan’s largest retailer, will shut a Seibu outlet on Dec. 25, its third department-store closure in two years as demand slumps for clothes and luxury goods… Department store operators Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. and J. Front Retailing Co. have also shut stores amid falling wages and rising job losses.”

U.S. consumer confidence rises to 16-month high (Market Watch)
“A little more optimism about the current economic climate sent the U.S. consumer confidence index to a 16-month high in January, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Conference Board.”

German fashion trade shows gaining momentum (Independent)
“Berlin-based fashion trade events Premium and Bread & Butter, running concurrently to Berlin Fashion Week January 20 – 23, recorded a rise in visitor figures, leaving organizers in a euphoric mood.”

Royal spin set to get wool back in fashion (Herald)
“Yesterday Prince Charles lent his support to the cause at the launch of The Wool Project, which aims to bring the fashion, carpet and textile industries together to increase demand for wool and raise its worth to upland farmers.”

Chanel and Armani, Under the Silvery Moon (IHT)
“Like a box of macaroons projected into cyberspace, the Chanel show on Tuesday played soft and citrus pastels against streamlined silver to make a strangely beautiful show.”

What is not in doubt, however, is the talent and taste of Ernest Beaux, nor his temperament which allowed no one the privilege of telling him what to do. His best composition was not No. 5, which has always been cleverly promoted, but rather the magnificent Bois des Iles of which Chanel has never taken full advantage.

— Perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, in the foreword to Michael Edwards’ Perfume Legends. I have owned this book for years but somehow never read the opening.

“Vol de Jour” by Karl Lagerfeld | Source: Chanel.com

NEW YORK, United States — In recent seasons, while a deep economic downturn has threatened the long-term survival of many magazines, a number of major fashion brands have been creating their own editorial content, and perhaps no brand has done more of this than Chanel. Back in November, Olivier Zahm posted an image of several layouts from 31 Rue Cambon, announcing “the first Chanel magazine which I have art directed and designed for Karl Lagerfeld, to be distributed worldwide in all the Chanel stores.”

But whereas 31 rue Cambon will be a print publication, Chanel’s real content focus has been in the digital space, harnessing Karl Lagerfeld himself to create increasing volumes of original content for digital distribution, especially around the brand’s showcase “Métiers d’Art” collections, which underscore Chanel’s unique commitment to the traditional Parisian ateliers the firm acquired in 2002 — costume jewellers Desrues, embroiderers Lesage, milliners Michel, feather-makers Lemarié, cobblers Massaro, floral designers Guillet, and silversmiths Goosens — a strategic point of differentiation.

Having created runway videos, a silent film and short video teasers to accompany their Paris-Moscou Pre-Fall 2009 and Paris-Venice Resort 2009-2010 “Métiers d’Art” collections, Chanel recently launched a longer-format film and a full runway video for their Paris-Shanghai Pre-Fall 2010 collection. To accompany Paris-Shanghai, Mr. Lagerfeld has also been posting a series of behind the scenes video diaries documenting his design process, as well as fittings with models and the making of advertising campaigns, all released via YouTube and the Chanel News section of the brand’s website.

In fact, Chanel News looks a lot like a blog and publishes “exclusive online features” with enough originality, regularity and volume to qualify as an online magazine. As well as the videos for the “Metiers d’Art” collections, there are fittings with Lily Allen for Spring Summer 2010, a ballet filmed in the haute couture salon at 31 rue Cambon, images of Coco Chanel’s private apartments shot by Olivier Zahm, photos of Edita Vilkeviciute’s favourite places in Shanghai, drawings of the Paris-Moscou collection by Russian model Sasha Pivavorova, personal entries from “Karl’s Diary,” and short films such as “Fitting Room Follies” and “Vol de Jour” featuring Lara Stone. With new features added every few days, it’s a remarkable volume of material.

So why is Chanel investing in creating and publishing all this digital content? The answer is rooted in the changing nature of media, marketing and technology and underscores lessons that all major fashion brands would do well to observe.

In the past, marketing fashion collections mostly meant buying pages in magazines or space on strategically positioned billboards. In both cases, brands paid to interrupt consumers, repeating a visual theme or message in order to create recognition, desire and conversion. By exerting their influence as advertisers, brands also forced magazines to feature their products in their editorial. But today, affluent consumers are migrating online, where the balance of power is dramatically different.

It’s hard for consumers to avoid advertising when they’re flipping through a magazine or walking down the street. And it’s hard for publishers to ignore advertisers’ demands when the costs of printing and distribution are high. But on the web, where the tools of communication are largely free — it costs nothing to publish a blog, share on Facebook, or broadcast on Twitter — brands no longer have the leverage to monopolise media or pressure editors. In fact, the sheer volume of media and commentary generated by consumers themselves increasingly drowns out the monologue of traditional marketing.

These days, it’s not about being louder. It’s about being more interesting. To communicate effectively, brands must inspire and harness conversations amongst consumers by giving people something remarkable to talk about — something of value that they will actively seek out, amplify and share with others. In this new reality, forward-thinking fashion brands like Chanel are learning to think like media companies, creating and publishing original editorial content to earn attention and attract fans who will carry their message across the internet.

This approach makes particular sense for luxury fashion brands who are known for their creativity and ability to convey social status. That’s because, online, content is social currency: influencers increasingly earn friends and followers by circulating interesting digital content via their blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

For Chanel, there are signs that this is just the beginning of a broad strategy to give consumers a continuous stream of inspiring content to talk about and spread across the internet, driving recognition, desire and conversion. In an interview with Women’s Wear Daily, Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel fashion, recently announced plans to relaunch the current Chanel News blog, this March, as a full blown destination, chanel-news.com.“The idea is to give all these social networks a location where they can have genuine information about Chanel,” Pavlovsky said.

Watch this space.

Vikram Alexei Kansara is Managing Editor of The Business of Fashion

In Perfumes: the A-Z Guide, Luca Turin writes that Chanel Coco Mademoiselle was a quickly assembled flanker, and its success surprised Chanel. However, in Women’s Wear Daily¹ before Coco Mademoiselle launched, Chanel’s “Vice President of fragrance and internet marketing”² said Coco Mademoiselle could double Coco’s business. In the same article, “industry insiders” guessed Coco Mademoiselle might earn as much as $15 million its first year.

Maybe Chanel’s statement about doubling Coco’s earnings was merely grandstanding for the press, but Women’s Wear Daily later reported Coco Mademoiselle raked in $21 million that first year.³ It also broke records by winning the FiFi for Prestige Fragrance in all the FiFi countries — the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Great Britain — as well as being awarded the European Star of the Year. Coco Mademoiselle has continued to hold its ground. The NPD Group, a market research firm, listed it as the third best selling fragrance in the United States in 2008…

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Actress Keira Knightley in a 2007 advert for Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle, directed by Joe Wright. The music is Joss Stone covering Nat King Cole’s 1965 hit, L-O-V-E.

Boss Black by Peter Lindbergh | Source: Hugo Boss

Permira to keep Hugo Boss, ProSieben for years (Reuters)
“Permira doesn’t plan to exit from media company ProSiebenSat.1 and fashion label Hugo Boss for a couple of years, the German head of the private equity company told Reuters.”

Chanel wins counterfeit case but is forced to pay damages (Telegraph)
“A seamstress who took Chanel to court for stealing her small firm’s crochet pattern has lost her counterfeit case but the famous fashion house was ordered to pay 400,000 euros for breach of contract.”

Do These Vuitton Ads Stretch Too Far? (Business Week)
“Instead of sexy models flaunting handbags and lots of skin, Louis Vuitton’s current ad campaign features Vermeer-inspired images of demure young women hand-finishing purses and wallets at a workshop table… There’s just one tiny detail missing. Hardly any Vuitton bags or wallets are handmade.”

Luxury shoppers still spending, but shelling out less (Los Angeles Times)
“The recession’s end hasn’t reached Rodeo Drive, where salesclerks can at times outnumber customers. But many stores are better prepared than last year, with leaner inventories and lower-priced goods.”

Retailers expect steady Christmas trading (Drapers)
“Every retailer surveyed in the British Retail Consortium’s Christmas Trading Snapshot Survey agreed that this year’s Christmas trading period would be at least as good as 2008.”

Another ad for Chanel Coco (see yesterday’s version with Vanessa Paradis if you missed it), starring Inès de la Fressange, the original face of Coco when it launched in the mid-1980s.

An oldie but goodie: Vanessa Paradis for Chanel Coco, 1991. Video quality less than excellent. Below the jump, the “making of”, in French.

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Most of us have fragrance milestones: the first perfume we bought with our own money, our first “serious” perfume, and maybe our first signature scent, back before perfume mania sank the whole signature scent possibility. My first signature scent was Chanel Coco. Now, a couple of decades and hundreds of perfumes separate me from my Coco days. When I stopped by Nordstrom last week to ask for a sample of the Eau de Parfum, I didn’t hold out much hope I’d still like it. After all, I’ve loved and left my share of 1980s blockbusters.

Silly me. It turns out all those sample vials of scent from drugstores to niche perfumeries I devoured over the years only led me to appreciate Coco’s artistry more. Coco is warm, elegant, beautifully blended, and easy. No, it won’t shock or challenge. There’s nothing funky or bizarre or tough about it. But just as a dinner of perfectly roasted chicken, potatoes, sautéed chard, and glass of Pinot Noir by the fire won’t rock the world, it satisfies far more often than the sous vide-cooked special from the latest darling chef.

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In Perfume: Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin, Richard Stamelman quotes from a 1936 Chanel publicity text about Chanel Cuir de Russie:

…I easily imagine this perfume floating in the wake of a tall, slender brunette, whose moves are confident, who voice is accustomed to giving orders, and who fingers are slightly darkened by tobacco. She is one of those women who always wears a suit, even at midnight at the Savoy; one of those women captivating to watch at the casino in Monaco, who after having lost a sum of money, takes bills and a money order from a love letter hidden in her fine leather handbag, where they have taken on a pungent, slightly wild odor, and with great calm throws them on the green baize of the gaming table.¹

Wowee! Who could resist a fragrance like that? (Let’s hope the copy writer went on to a career as a novelist.) But by dint of perspective or reformulation, today’s Cuir de Russie is still beautiful, but not the butch aristocrat of yesteryear. Instead, it’s as if the Cuir de Russie of 70 years ago earned an advanced degree and spent time on the therapist’s couch. She’s still elegant and self-possessed, but she’s not getting written up in the gossip columns…

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Escada Store, Berlin | Source: Luxuo

Megha Mittal to buy luxury fashion house Escada (Reuters)
“‘Today the insolvency administrator of ESCADA AG signed a sale and transfer agreement with one of the Mittal Family Trusts,’ the company said in a statement late on Thursday after the preliminary creditors’ committee approved the deal.”

Victoria’s Secret unveils plans for launch in UK and Europe (Retail Week)
“US fashion and beauty giant Limited Brands has outlined plans to open Victoria’s Secret stores in strategic markets including the UK as part of an international expansion drive.”

eBay goes upmarket with fashion site launch (Revolution)
“eBay has launched a website written by fashion followers in an attempt to attract more ‘well-to-do’ shoppers. The Inside Source aims to shift perceptions that eBay only offers second hand goods and last season’s threads.”

Asia boosts Hermès luxury sales (AFP)
“Sales in Asia helped boost French luxury group Hermès in the third quarter, the company said on Friday, reporting an overall 10-percent rise in sales to 452 million euros (672 million dollars).”

Seamstress takes on might of Chanel over crochet pattern (Guardian)
“A 61-year-old woman from a small town in eastern France is taking on the might of one of world’s greatest fashion houses in a case that threatens to shake up the way the industry treats its skilled workers.”

As it is for many people, fall is my favorite time of year. Perhaps this is because around here it is the most fragrant season: the cool, damp leaves send up a sweet, cidery rot, I could swear there is always a tinge of woodsmoke in the air, and the evergreens seem sharper and straighter as the deciduous competition flames out. Early every morning, after bumping around and out of my pitch-dark apartment, I take a deep draw of cool air and wonder if this smell is a regular olfactory hallucination, since I live in an urban neighborhood with bylaws against bonfires and no apple orchards for miles. Whether I am susceptible to seasonal scent suggestion disorder or not, I love the colors and skies of autumn, and the weather is often invigorating enough for me to look fondly upon the hooting, rowdy herds of schoolkids that suddenly appear on every sidewalk. Even if fall doesn’t make you feel this disgustingly cheerful, you can still spend your season of mists and mellow fruitfulness in gorgeous perfumes. Please comment with your own fall favorites and let me know if you’ve sampled the new Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles. I haven’t tried it yet, and am wondering whether it will be added to my current autumn Lutens rotation of Chêne, Santal Blanc and El Attarine.

Etro Shaal Nur: Rather like a more contemplative, citrus-tinged Habanita, this is an airy, incense-smoke version of Molinard’s classic vetiver-vanilla. While not being particularly strong — it’s better sprayed than dabbed — Shaal Nur has impressive projection…

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As Karl Lagerfeld pointed out after the Chanel show today, “I spent part of my childhood on a farm.” Well, he’s come along way from the family farm, no?